Looking for role models in The Boston Globe can be frustrating.
For scores of angry readers, the Globe’s Jan. 15 full-page ad memorializing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with the words — “He violated dozens of state laws. He was sent to jail fourteen times. He was pursued by the FBI. A more perfect role model is hard to find” — transmitted a negative message.
For a group of Boston teen-agers whose knowledge of King comes only from history books — and who live on mean streets in tough times — the search for role models in the media has proved elusive.
The youngsters, members of the Youth Voice Collaborative, gathered at the Boston YWCA last week to discuss their recent survey of the Globe and Boston Herald. From Sept. 1 through Dec. 31, they looked at weekday front-page articles and photos, evaluating portrayals of people under the age of 20. Admittedly, this was not a scientifically foolproof survey. And Page 1 is only a small slice of the paper. But the results disturbed and disillusioned the teens.
According to the study, only 8 percent of the Globe Page 1 pieces featured young people; 44 percent of those were victims of crime or tragedy (that number jumps to 68 percent in the Herald); and the Globe tended to portray kids as “a statistical mass” with broad descriptive language like “foster kids” and “teen-age mothers.”
The bottom line, according to 15-year-old Millie Commodore, is, “I’d rather see more positive things about my peers in the paper.” The group’s members noted, with unhappy irony, that the most positive story about teen-agers they’d seen recently featured foreign kids — Bosnian students — coming to this country.
Though 14-year-old James Saunders (who works as a Globe teen-age movie reviewer) says extensive coverage of youth violence “brings teen-agers’ self-esteem down,” the group thought the biggest problem with their media-shaped image was adult reaction. Levi Antoine, 17, notices how people “speed up a little and switch their purse to the other side,” when they see him and his friends. Commodore’s family didn’t want her hanging around with her friend Meera Hyun, also a member of the collaborative, after reading stories about Asian gangs.
Not surprisingly, the group recommended that the Globe and Herald feature “more positive role models of young people and adults,” “tell more stories about young people who are agents of change,” and “try not to give more attention to young people doing negative things than to those who are doing positive things.”
The most interesting moment came when it was suggested to the teen-agers that journalism naturally tends to focus on conflict and trauma as opposed to “good news.”
“Then you’re not fulfilling your obligation to society,” retorted Saunders. “It’s a factor of laziness,” chimed in Neal Boyle, 13. “It’s harder to find out the good things people do.” “You can’t make a judgment,” insisted Commodore, “on what I think is news.”
That’s pretty adult thinking in my book.
Yet many adults who called here upset about the Martin Luther King ad seemed worried about the negative impact on those born after the civil rights leader’s death. They complained that the wording suggested that breaking the law was a good way to become a role model and that the ad highlighted the negative as opposed to the kinder, gentler aspects of King’s legacy.
“This is what Dr. King’s life was about,” says Leslie “Skip” Griffin, the paper’s director of community relations, who reviewed the ad. “He was about changing laws in the Deep South that codified segregation.” Maybe, he said, people “don’t like Dr. King with the rage and passion.”
Globe publisher William O. Taylor denied any intention to “besmirch his reputation or his legacy,” adding that “Like many others in the civil rights movement, he was compelled to violate unjust laws and even go to jail to gain equal rights for people of color.”
I’m sorry that so many people were outraged and confused by the King ad. But it’s a sad commentary on our times when the tradition of civil disobedience, the ugly reminders of officially sanctioned segregation and King’s own anger and steel are no longer subjects for polite conversation. History is not selective amnesia.
As for that vulnerable younger generation, let the record show that six of the seven Youth Collaborative teen-agers surveyed liked the ad.
“If you look back at the times they were living in, to see the injustice going on, I would have broken laws, too,” said Commodore.
I think we’re selling young people short.
